The name of the movie is "The Fast and the Furious." The cars are fast and the people are furious in this loud action film about the street-racing cults in Los Angeles.

It's the kind of movie where a guy sneaks up to hit somebody just as the soundtrack blares a song that goes: "Watch your back/ Watch your back/ Watcho, watcho, watcho back." Pandemonium ensues. The pandemonium seems to be happening mostly to the camera. It's faces, fists, torsos, all in close-up, accompanied by syncopated noise -- watcho, watcho, watcho back.

It's a good picture, even though it's exactly the kind of movie that's usually awful: youth-oriented, straining to be contemporary, straining to be mythic, with no faith in an audience's capacity to stay awake without being jolted every few minutes.

AUTHENTICITY

But "The Fast and the Furious" has something special about it. It's a formula movie, to be sure, but it's Formula One. There's some nitrous oxide under the hood of this vehicle. Director Rob Cohen infuses the picture with its own overriding tone -- a kind of surreal authenticity, if such a thing can be imagined.

We know, as we're watching, that we're not really seeing a slice of contemporary youth culture. But within the exaggerated parameters of the story,

it feels true. It's like a street racer's dream of summertime, with the night streets blanketed for blocks with young people of every race and description, and the cars all sleek and bright and under the lights. "The Fast and the Furious" is like a lie that's more true than the truth.

Cohen's approach to the story is reinforced by the camera work, which at times borders on hysteria. At peak moments -- a fight, a race, an encounter with the police -- the music cranks up and the editing gets, well, fast and furious. Yet it seems emotionally right, as if the viewer were taking a ride inside a turbulent consciousness.

In its non-racing sections the movie is nicely paced, with an eye to keeping the story moving. It's an old story, with new characters. Vin Diesel plays Dominic, the king of the street racers, a natural leader of men, with a shaved head and lots of muscles bulging out of his tank top. Paul Walker is Brian, a fresh-faced fellow from Phoenix with a handful of secrets. The main thing is he wants to race and find respect on the mean streets.

As for the racing scenes, they will probably be of interest even to people who drive the speed limit on Interstate 5. The cars are like rockets, spitting fire out the tailpipe. There's also something releasing about the sight of Los Angeles completely cleared of traffic. It's a beautiful fantasy.

The performances are certainly adequate, sometimes better than that, but so charismatic that it doesn't really matter. Diesel is certainly going places. Though at times, in the big emotional moments, the thought crosses the mind, "Hold it, can this guy act?," he makes up for it with the look, the poise and the growling bass voice of a real original -- and a future star.

UNEXPECTED DIRECTIONS

The interaction of Dominic and Brian forms the heart of the movie, as Dominic gradually opens up to the novice and Brian soaks it all up. To take "The Fast and the Furious" seriously for a moment, it's essentially about Brian's growth as a man. As Brian, Walker is up to that journey, which is especially fine, since the journey goes in unexpected directions. Without giving away anything, the picture is ultimately subversive in its viewpoint, not reassuring like most action movies.

Everybody looks great. Michelle Rodriguez ("Girlfight"), as Dominic's girlfriend, doesn't do much, but she looks so angry doing it that she becomes interesting. Chad Lindberg stands out as an odd mathematical genius who has channeled his energies into cars after flunking out of school thanks to attention deficit disorder.